The deep seriousness in the keen eyes of the learned confessor, which could look gentle, indulgent, and sometimes even merry, revealed that he desired to discuss some matter of importance; but the very first question which the priest addressed to him restored the young man’s composure.

The confessor merely desired to know what took him to the house of the man who must be known to him as the soul of the evangelical innovations in his native city, and the friend of Martin Luther.

Wolf now quietly informed him what offer Dr. Hiltner, as syndic of Ratisbon, had made him in the name of the Council.

“And you?” asked the confessor anxiously.

“I declined it most positively,” replied Wolf, “although it would have suited my taste to stand at the head of the musical life in my native city.”

“Because you prefer to remain in the service of her Majesty Queen Mary?” asked De Soto.

“No, your Eminence.  Probably I shall soon leave the position near her person.  I rather feared that, as a good Catholic, I would find it difficult to do my duty in the service of an evangelical employer.”

“There is something in that.  But what led the singer—­you know whom I mean—­to the same house?”

Wolf could not restrain a slight smile, and he answered eagerly:  “The young lady and I grew up together under the same roof, your Eminence, and she came for no other purpose than to bid me farewell.  A lamb that clings more firmly to the shepherd, and more strongly abhors heresy, could scarcely be found in our Redeemer’s flock.”

“A lamb!” exclaimed the almoner with a slight touch of scorn.  “What are we to think of the foe of heresy who exchanges tender kisses with the wife of the most energetic leader of Protestantism?”

“By your permission, your Eminence,” Wolf asserted, “only the daughter offered her her lips.  She and her mother made the singer’s acquaintance at the musical exercises established here by the Council.  Music is the only bond between them.”—­“Yet there is a bond,” cried De Soto suspiciously.  “If you see her again before your departure, advise her, in my name, to sever it.  She found a friendly welcome and much kindness in that house, and here at least—­tell her so—­only one faith exists.  A prosperous journey, Sir Knight.”

The delay caused by this conversation induced Wolf to quicken his pace.  It had grown late, and Erasmus Eckhart had surely been waiting some time for his school friend in the old precentor’s house.

This was really the case, but the Wittenberg theologian, whose course of study had ended only a fortnight before, and who, with his long, brown locks and bright blue eyes, still looked like a gay young student, had had no reason to lament the delay.

He was first received by Ursel, who had left her bed and was moving slowly about the room, and how much the old woman had had to tell her young fellow-believer from Wittenberg about Martin Luther, who was now no longer living, and Professor Melanchthon; but Erasmus Eckhart liked to talk with her, for as a schoolmate and intimate friend of Wolf he had paid innumerable visits to the house, and received in winter an apple, in summer a handful of cherries, from her.